This invention relates to the transmission of communications over a communications network. More particularly, this invention relates to systems and methods for providing bi-directional call management capabilities to users having non-geographic telephone numbers.
Telephone numbers are traditionally correlated to a specific physical location, such as an individual's house. In such cases, call management for an individual telephone number is performed on an address-by-address basis. The call management for each address is typically performed by the local exchange carrier (i.e., the "LEC") that the residence is connected to. Therefore, if several individuals reside in a single residence, one or more individuals at that residence must be accountable to the LEC for the phone line, rather than the LEC having the capability to manage calls for each individual. All outgoing calls placed through telephones (including modems, facsimiles machines, etc.) located within the residence are billed to the residential, geographic-based, telephone number, as well as any phone calls placed using a calling card that is often linked to the geographic-based telephone number. In this manner, the residence receives a single phone bill that summarizes telephone activity for the given address.
One problem with traditional, geographically-based, telephone call management is that telephone numbers must be changed every time individuals change residence. As a result, individuals may obtain various telephone services from different carriers to reduce the number of changes that are typically required when the individual changes residences (e.g., a user might have their 1+ long distance company be AT&T while also obtaining a calling card from another carrier). However, this still results in the individual receiving multiple bills and having to carry multiple calling cards, each having its own unique personal identification number (i.e., PIN code--a security code formed from additional information that is typically not shown on the card, but is often required to access the services provided by the card). When an individual utilizes a calling card from another carrier (i.e., not the 1+ long distance company), the calling card number is typically merely a billing account number that enables the carrier to bill the individual for calls made using the calling card, rather than a number that is related to the individual's geographically-based telephone number. Thus, the individual must remember and protect an additional number, often greater than 10 digits, to place calls (theft of a calling card number is unfortunately made easier when then number must be referred to by the individual while dialing--a problem that may be alleviated by reducing the quantity of numbers that an individual must use to place calls).
One service that has been implemented to address these problems is the personal telephone number service. A personal telephone number, unlike a geographic-based number, is not geographically based, but is instead, related to an individual or business, rather than to a residence. Known examples of these non-geographic-based numbers are telephone numbers that begin with 800 or 888, instead of an area code (where an individual calling an 800, for example, knows who the call is routed to, but does not know where, geographically, the call is answered). Jordan et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,035 describes a method of providing person locator service in which a called subscriber may be reached by dialing a personal number unique to the subscriber. The subscriber is assigned a personal telephone number and given access to set the features related to that number. For example, if the subscriber is home, the subscriber could dial into the personal telephone number system and set the forwarding feature to be the home phone number (the forwarding feature may be used to direct the call to any stationary phone number). If, however, the individual is going to be "mobile," the personal number would be set to paging mode so that any incoming calls are forwarded to a paging device (or the incoming calls could instead be directed to voice-mail). Under these circumstances, the subscriber's personal phone number would not have to change when the subscriber moved because the number is not tied to a specific residence. This solution, however, does not address the problems of placing outgoing calls, which would still be tied to the geographic-based phone number.
It would therefore be desirable to provide systems and methods that provide bi-directional call management services to individuals that are not tied to specific residences.
It would also be desirable to provide systems and methods that provide a full-range bi-directional call management services to individuals so that individuals need only utilize a single service provider for their telephone needs.